Do you use great email signatures?

Email signatures are a great way of adding some advertising and branding. You should always use a nice email signature for external emails. Internally, you may use a short one (just your name or initials).

Full email signatures (for external recipients) are great when they have:

• A little branding and advertising (can be a tagline or company news), so people know instantly who it is from
  • You can promote services or awards at the bottom (e.g. "⭐️ 2023 Microsoft Partner of the Year Finalist")
• Your phone number (in international format - it's important to add the country code so people from all around the world can easily add you to their contacts - as per the right format to show phone numbers)
• Your company website link
• Your social media and blog link
• Your IM link (e.g. Teams or Facebook Messenger)
• Your position
• Your location (city/country) where you are based

Mobile Signature

Use the mobile signature when sending emails from your phone. Mobile signatures are not easily customized so they can be simpler.

❌ Figure: Bad example - The default signature

✅ Figure: Good example – Custom signature with name, URL, phone number, and IM link

PC Long Signature (Big and Fancy)

Use the complete long signature when sending a new email or appointment to a client.

This is created in HTML and goes well on emails with Word used as the email editor. Include some product advertising, like what's new on your monthly newsletter. It should have the company colors.

Figure: A great long signature for PC

However, you shouldn't use your long signature on every sent email. It's recommended to have a simpler version for internal emails and appointments:

PC Short Signature

Use a really short signature (your first name or initials) or no signature at all in internal emails as people already know who you are. You may want to add a quick link to IM.

Figure: PC Short Signature Example

Implementation

Option 1: CodeTwo (paid)

The easiest way to implement consistent signatures across a company is to use a 3rd party signature provider e.g. CodeTwo.com and Exclaimer.com
This way you quickly get great email signatures, with consistent branding, to all your employees and on all their devices. CodeTwo is cheaper and has a nicer design tool UI than Exclaimer, however they are both good. CodeTwo is built on Microsoft technology.

CodeTwo (and Exclaimer) give:

• Automatic signatures are added on any device – from laptop to smartphones
• Consistent signatures for every employee as they all use one template – consistency is important
• Management via a portal
• Marketing can run campaigns and schedule changes to all signatures
• Hassle-free setup – users do not need to touch any signatures on any devices

Figure: With CodeTwo the correct signature is auto selected

Option 2: Set it up manually (free)

Mobile - How to set it up in the Outlook App

1. Go to Settings on the Outlook application
2. Click on Signature
3. Type your desired signature for mobile

Figure: Outlook mobile application settings

Figure: Editable mobile signature on Outlook mobile application

PC - How to set it up in Outlook

For windows

1. Open Microsoft Outlook and go File | Options
2. Click the "Mail" tab as seen below
3. Click on "Signatures..." and add in your signatures

Figure: How to add a signature in Outlook in Windows

For Mac

1. Open Microsoft Outlook app and go Outlook | Settings
2. Click the "Signatures" tab in the "Email" section

Figure: How to add a signature in Outlook in Mac

Browser - How to set it up in OWA

1. Open OWA (e.g. mail.northwind.com/owa)
2. Click "Options" on the top right side.
3. Go Settings | Mail and make following changes:

Figure: Add your 'Email Signature' and save

How to set it up in Office 365

1. Open Outlook in Office 365 (http://outlook.office.com/mail/inbox)
2. Click the "Settings" cog on the top right corner of the Window
3. Click on “View all Outlook settings” at the bottom of the Settings panel

Figure: Where to find "View all Outlook settings"

1. In the "Settings" window that pops up, go to: Mail | Compose and reply.
2. Add your email signature and click "Save"